There is something quite fitting about having Nathaniel Stern talk about what he does on Albert Einstein's birthday and Pi Day, a day to celebrate math. Stern is a wonderfully wonky ace if there ever was one. He thinks and talks fast, especially on subjects he loves, like interactive art.

This evening, he'll be presenting some of the core ideas he's been exploring for a while, part of his research for a coming book "Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance," part of the Arts Future Book series due out from Gylphi Limited later this year. In this informal talk, Stern will argue that interactive art, at its best, creates meaning through environments of physical, bodily engagement, or what he calls "conceptual-material formations." | March 14, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

Kenny Chesney's new album, "Life on a Rock," will be released Tuesday, but fans can spend the weekend listening to a free advance stream at this link from iTunes. We'll have our full review of the album Wednesday in the Tap Milwaukee CD roundup.

The new disc comes less than a year after the release of Chesney's "Welcome to the Fishbowl," an album that found the country megastar exploring more introspective themes. (I placed "Fishbowl" on my list of Top 10 Country Albums of 2012.) On "Life on a Rock," Chesney penned eight of the 10 tracks, diving even deeper into the personal moments of his life. Along the way, he taps Willie Nelson for a playful beach duet and joins The Wailers for a full-on reggae jaunt. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

Montreal quartet Pallade Musica will give a concert of 17th-century Italian music Nov. 16 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

During its 27th season of time-traveling, globe-spanning concerts, Early Music Now will present the local debut of an Estonian sacred-music ensemble and a Christmas concert by the famed Waverly Consort.

Here's a look at the 2013-'14 EMN lineup, which includes a preseason concert. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Article

Prodigal, the restaurant that will replace Moct nightclub at 240 E. Pittsburgh Ave., will be a gastropub serving rustic European plates.

Owner Guy Lamberg, with business partner and brother-in-law Rob Butterfield, hopes to open in early June. Lamberg owns Savory Catering & Events in Milwaukee; Butterfield is a restaurateur who opened Erba in Chicago, a Chicago Magazine best-new restaurant of 2007, and worked for the Lettuce Entertain You group. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(2)

Edna O'Brien (right), seen with her parents in 1966, writes about growing up in Ireland in "Country Girl."

Dreams have always been important to 82-year-old Edna O'Brien, so one pays attention when she recounts two of them in the first chapter of "Country Girl," her memoir.

In the first, she walks toward her childhood home in County Clare - a "veritable temple" of warm light, highlighting the "feasting within." When she seeks entry, her way is barred by "hard men" brandishing spears. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Article

Perhaps when James Grant writes it and dubs it "recently composed music." The distinction may sound like a game of words, but in reality it speaks volumes about Grant's tuneful, lyrical writing and now about Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra bass clarinetist Bill Helmers' new "High Autumn" CD of Grant's music. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Article

Before being hanged in 1896, Herman Webster Mudgett - aka Dr. H.H. Holmes - serially murdered as many as 200 people. In his best-selling "The Devil in the White City," Erik Larson told us how. In the often compelling "House of Horrors," Aaron Kopec tells us why.

While "Horrors" invokes the familiar Corinthians verse about putting away childish things, there's no escaping childhood here. It's where "Horrors" begins and the place to which we continually return, as we retrace Herman's hardscrabble beginnings alongside an abusive, hard-drinking father (Kopec) and a grimly religious mother (Sharon Nieman-Kobert). | April 26, 2013»Read Full Article

Maria Semple was a producer on “Arrested Development” before becoming a novelist. In her review of Semple’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” Los Angeles Times critic Carolyn Kellogg found quite a bit of that show’s “unexpected, antic plotting in this novel. Its many twists and turns are genuinely surprising....”

Watch him below perform "Milwaukee, Here I Come," with his then-new, later ex-wife Tammy Wynette. It's lyrics explain: "Milwaukee was where we were before we came here / Workin’ in a brewery, makin' the finest beer / You came to me on a payday night and said 'Let's go to Tennessee' / So we came down to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry." | April 26, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

When Marina Abramovic, the grande dame of performance art, finds you fascinating, you know you've got it going on. Such is the case with actor James Franco, who fascinates and confuses a lot of people. He is, after all, a lot of things -- an actor, poet, painter, Oscar host, wizard, teacher, writer and, according to one of my editors anyway, a "hipster dilettante."

The preservation and adaptive re-use of existing buildings is as crucial to the field of architecture as are trends in new construction, and the architecture school at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee just received a $500,000 gift from philanthropists David and Julia Uihlein to bolster education in this area.

The donation will support the UWM's Historic Preservation Institute and should expand the institute's ability to address preservation challenges in Milwaukee and to partner with the city's preservation specialists. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(1)

5 p.m. Friday

The spring Westside Artwalk Friday and Saturday turns W. Vliet St. into a smorgasbord of arts and more. Many participating venues have special activities for the art- and fun-minded of all ages. | April 26, 2013»Read Full Article